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Let’s continue wrap-up this week! I don’t know about you, but everything is so gray and cold around here that I did a double take when I saw this tulip photo in my online album. Really? Those grow in MY garden? They will be back in just a few months? Whoo hoo!!

So this selection of links is garden-themed. If you’re like our household (especially Mr. Cheap and Mlle. Cheap), the winter weather has you poring over garden catalogs. Mlle. Cheap has requested a garden of her own this year (after all, she’ll be 9 years old!) and has lofty plans. Cardoons, anyone?

In the past week, I came across oodles of do-it-yourself tips and tricks online. Here are the top contenders — let us know if you have tried these, if you do try them, and if you have alternate versions or ideas.

Make your own poptarts with this recipe from Frugal Antics of a Harried Homemaker. Her how-to uses pie crust, so it looks like a great opportunity for me to use some of our rendered lard, make it gluten-free if I so desire, and use some stored apples for a yummy apple filling. Three cheers!

TipNut published some information about How to Grow $700 worth of food in 100 square feet. Think about it — a 20 foot by 5 foot patch. That’s just a strip across most yards …

And once you’ve grown all those potatoes, turn again to Living the Frugal Life — because, after all, she has 74 lbs to eat. She wrote on Simple, Frugal, Green Co-Op about cooking potatoes faster with a skewer in ’em. She also said she bakes potatoes whenever she has something in the oven. Commenters said they do the same with beets (co-cooking or oven-sharing) and that their families stick a new, clean nail in potatoes so they cook faster.